Case Study: Rackspace achieves seamless hybrid cloud scalability and lower costs with F5 Networks' BIG-IP LTM

Rackspace Hosting Links Dedicated Servers to Cloud for Maximum Scalability and Flexibility

Rackspace sought a way to let customers seamlessly link dedicated managed servers with cloud-based servers to gain scalability, flexibility and security without sending traffic over the public Internet. To build its hybrid service RackConnect, Rackspace partnered with F5 Networks, leveraging existing F5 Application Delivery Networking devices—specifically BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (BIG-IP LTM) and the F5 iControl API—to avoid a slow, public VPN approach and meet stringent security and performance requirements.

Using F5 Networks’ BIG-IP LTM and iControl, Rackspace automated traffic routing, health monitoring, content offload, packet filtering and dynamic pool membership so cloud instances could be added or removed in real time while keeping sensitive data on dedicated servers. The RackConnect service moved from a two‑month private beta to global launch in November 2010 with under three months to market, enabled customers to mix dedicated and cloud resources at wire speed, reduced costs and administration, and delivered an estimated 3,000% ROI for Rackspace.

Rackspace

Andrew Schroepfer

VP of Strategy